"I felt like I was in a movie or a TV show, where you see things that happen and it doesn't feel like it's real," said Kirpach, an art history teacher in Frisco schools. "We've been diving in this area close to shore for years, and it was just an amazing feeling."

It's only the third time a case like this has ever been reported, the last being in 2009. "These were healthy starfish," said Tony Reisinger, Cameron County Extension Agent for Coastal & Marine Resources with Texas Sea Grant at Texas A&M University.

"It's like swimming with a submarine with teeth," Kelly said. "I mean, it's huge, it's unbelievable down there; it dwarfs everything I've ever seen underwater."
According to scientists at Mote, there is at least one other Great White in and around the Gulf and her name is Betsy.

Scientists are now studying the photos of a rare and gruesome goblin shark accidentally caught in the Gulf of Mexico after they spotted another unusual deep-sea creature lying with the captured beast on the deck of the boat.

After a two-hour battle, the anglers finally got the hammerhead to shore where they noticed its injury.
Friends looked on in amazement as Campus started pulling shark pups out intact and rushing them to the water so they could swim away.

The Bald Cypress forest, protected in an oxygen-free environment for more than 50,000 years, was likely uncovered by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said Ben Raines, executive director of the nonprofit Weeks Bay Foundation and one of the first divers to explore the site.

The wreck, its identity and origin still unknown, remains in about 4,300 feet of water some 150 to 170 miles off Galveston. "What we have just completed is the deepest documentation, recovery and excavation of a shipwreck in U.S. waters," said James Delgado, one of eight marine archaeologists aboard the Nautilus.

Covadonga Arias, a professor of microbial genomics at Auburn University in Alabama, found that Vibrio vulnificus was 10 times higher in tar balls than in sand and up to 10 times higher than in seawater.

The discovery of three historic shipwrecks, most likely from the same event, is so unusual in the northern Gulf of Mexico that just about any information gained from their analysis will chart new ground, said a researcher on the project.

"I looked around baffled," she said by phone Thursday from Miramar Beach. "Is this really happening? It felt like something straight out of a movie."
Four days after the mysterious find, despite some promising leads, she's still trying to track down the owner.

All 29 crew members on the USS Narcissus died when the venerable steam tug sank during a violent winter storm in January 1866 off the coast of Florida.

Now, the shipwreck in 15 feet of water near Tampa is set to become an underwater archaeological preserve.

The wreck of the U.S. Navy ship lost Jan. 4, 1866, off Egmont Key, Fla., has been nominated to become Florida's 12th "shipwreck park," according to a 2011 proposal from the Florida state archaeological research bureau.

No date has been set for the designation but those involved with the project hope it will be soon, said Michael Terrell, dive safety officer with the Florida Aquarium in Tampa.

"We are waiting on the approval of the permits for the moorings system before we can dedicate the preserve," Terrell said April 15 by email.

According to the Tampa Tribune, the designation is expected to make the wreck a destination for scuba divers and boost tourism in the area.

Once the park is established, non-divers will also be able to view the shipwreck through brochures and the Museums in the Sea website, the proposal stated.

Nicole Morris, a maritime archaeologist who did a master's thesis on the shipwreck site and has pushed for its preservation, said by email that the protection offered by the sunken ship's "vacant hulk" has resulted in a new ecosystem of juvenile fish, coral, sponges and other species.

The muster roll of the men on the ship listed names of men from Ohio, New York, England and mostly Ireland and told their previous occupations, Morris said.

"There were draftsmen, waiters, carpenters, masons and laborers, who were pressed into a different role (after) joining the service," her email stated.

Researchers are still hoping to find a picture of the ship before it sank as well as personal letters from crew members.

"...(S)ince a picture of the crew turned up at a garage sale in Canada, anything is possible," Morris said.

The ship's final commander, Isaac S. Bradbury, was from Machias, Maine, she said. He joined the Union Navy and served aboard the USS Cambridge blockading ports along the North Carolina coast before being assigned to the Narcissus, she said.

In two letters to his hometown pastor, Bradbury described his war experiences, including the sorrow he felt over killing a Confederate soldier during a shore raid.

As stated in the 2011 proposal about the Narcissus, the project to create a new historical attraction would involve cooperation among state, county and city officials, the U.S. Navy, local organizations and individuals.

The USS Narcissus will be unique among Florida's underwater archaeologicalpreserves because it is U.S. Government property, the proposal states. Under the Sunken Military Craft Act of 2005, the U.S. Navy will continue to own the ship.

Built in 1863 during the Civil War, in East Albany, N.Y., the ship was commissioned as USS Narcissus at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in February 1864, according to the preservation proposal.

In August 1864, the ship served at Fort Morgan during the Union victory at theBattle of Mobile Bay. In December 1864, Narcissus hit a torpedo during a storm and sank, but no lives were lost and all the ammunition and weapons were removed, the proposal stated.

On Dec. 7 of that same year, while on picket duty at Dog River Bar, Mobile Bay, Narcissus struck a torpedo while paying out her anchor line during a fierce storm. The mine caused an explosion that left a large hole in the starboard side of the hull amidships. Although the vessel sank in 15 minutes, no lives were lost and all ammunition and arms were removed.

It was taken to the Pensacola Naval Yard for repairs and remained there through the rest of the Civil War. It was on its way north for decommissioning when it sank in 1866, the proposal stated.

The Narcissus was investigated during the Tampa Bay Historic Shipwreck Survey by the Florida Aquarium, the proposal stated. The three-year project was conducted 2006 to 2009 under the archaeological direction of South Eastern Archaeological Services, Inc.

Texas also has a marine archaeology program operated through the Texas Historical Commission but does not have shipwreck preserves comparable to those in Florida, said Amy A. Borgens, the state's marine archaeologist.

"We also don't have the type of visibility in our state waters that would make recreational diving on these types of sites desirable (usually less than 6 inches or zero-visibility)," Borgens said by email. "The locations of submerged archeological sites considered State Antiquities Landmarks are protected and cannot be made public."